“These fried cakes, which originated in New England, have been overwhelmingly popular in the American diet. Those of you who hark back to World War I will remember that the Salvation Army established itself in history with girls who carried doughnuts through to the trenches. People gave money for doughnut machines so they could be turned out by the thousands for the troops. Nowadays cake doughnuts are covered with chocolate and all kinds of icings, which are sometimes revolting.”
-James Beard, Beard on Bread
The recipe notes for Cake Doughnuts illustrate the two things that I absolutely love about James Beard’s books: how he provides cultural and historical context for the recipes, and how he is opinionated almost to the point of being a curmudgeon. After my experiences with almost setting oil on fire and managing to adhere dough to wax paper, Cake Doughnuts were the final Fried Cakes section recipe.
Here are the ingredients:
I halved the recipe, and substituted nutmeg for mace.
Last night, I mixed up my dough and left in refrigerator overnight to chill. The dough was similar in texture to a sugar cookie dough (and like sugar cookie dough, tasted pretty good).
This morning I rolled out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch and used my doughnut cutter to cut out some doughnuts and holes. Keeping in mind my previous frying experiences, I was very careful to maintain the oil temperature at 370 degrees and fried the holes for twice as long as the doughnuts to ensure that they baked all the way through.
I ended up with five very nice looking doughnuts:
and a corresponding number of holes:
Homemade Cake Doughnuts are delectable beyond anything you will find at the grocery store, or even Dunkin’ Doughnuts (and I say this as someone who would happily open the first Minnesota franchise). The outside is cooked to a crisp perfection, with a soft, sweetened inside. I think they’re wonderful plain; Mike frosted his with the maple glaze recipe from Maple Bars, and reports that the results were not revolting in the least.
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